She opened her eyes and stepped back. He missed the feel of her in his arms as she ran her hands down her dress to alleviate the wrinkles before reaching for her bag.
She looked up, putting the bag on her shoulder. “I think this was a very successful meeting, Mr. Jacobson.” Her smile had grown playful and mischievous. He liked it.
“I agree, Ms. Riley. We shall have to do another.”
She was moving towards the door when she stopped, looked back, and winked. Immediately he remembered the wedding, the same hint he had discretely sent her in the very beginning. What a turn of events.
He was smiling foolishly as he mumbled the word, “Goodbye.”
16
Kat
It took three days before a dinner was scheduled. Kat had felt like a kid waiting for Christmas after leaving his office, as if Christmas was some near but immeasurable time away.
She had been at work, toiling through yet another spreadsheet, when her phone rang. She’d nearly let it go to voicemail just because she was so close to finishing her work, but answered it just in time.
“Mr. Jacobson would like to request another meeting in order to further discuss your proposal.” The secretary sounded completely uninterested, and if anything, annoyed to be calling Kat to set this up.
Kat wanted to sound as professional as possible, but found herself grinning from ear to ear, regardless of the secretary’s tone. “When is Mr. Jacobson proposing to meet?”
“Are you available to meet with him Friday at The West Wing Steakhouse at 7pm?” the secretary asked. Kat could almost see her roll her eyes through the phone.
“Yes, that sounds perfect.” It was a good thing that the secretary couldn’t see through the phone on this end. Kat was doing a silent victory dance around her cubicle. It looked like a cross between a touchdown dance and the Macarena, but Kat didn’t care. They had a date!
The secretary repeated the specifics of the meeting again before abruptly hanging up. It was all business as far as she was concerned, which suited Kate just fine. She wanted the secretary to think it was all just business. They needed everyone to think that.
She was out of breath from her happy dance as she plopped down into her chair and spun in lazy circles. A date. A pretend business meeting, but a real date with Mr. Sexy-wink. Life was golden and bright. She could barely wait.
Kat packed and collected her files and laptop before getting ready for dinner that evening. It would be just like her to show up to a ‘business dinner’ with AJ without even a pencil in her hand. If they were going to be able to see each other, she had to do a good job at keeping up the pretense. The only way to combat the anticipation was to be overly systematic.
She had allowed herself a considerable amount of time to shower and decide on her attire, but the process moved far quicker than she thought. It wasn’t extremely hard to pick out an outfit. She simply chose her favorite professional getup: black dress slacks with matching jacket and a light blue silk button-up blouse.
What took longer was her choice of shoe. After all, he was the CEO of Shoesy, and he had probably already seen a hundred times the shoes that a normal guy would see in his entire life. He had probably even seen more shoes and purses than she had. She wondered what his preference was, and wondered even more if he had a preference beyond selling whatever was best for the company.
It came down to black, Mary-Jane style pumps that were classic and work appropriate, or a pair of red stilettos that made her legs and ass look fantastic, even in pants.
She finally settled on the pair of classy black pumps. They matched the pant length and they were pretty and feminine, yet practical and comfortable. If she was to keep up the guise of this being a business meeting, she had to keep things on the down low. No matter how good the red stilettos would have looked, they weren’t something that was business appropriate.
Kat went out to the apartment parking lot, excited and ready for her date. Except she was blocked in. A huge moving truck was parked directly behind her, completely blocking her in.
“Hello?” Kat called, walking around the truck. “Is anyone there?”
No one answered. The truck was empty and she couldn’t see anyone around.
Kat sighed. At least she had budgeted extra time. She glanced around again, making sure that there really wasn’t anyone there. She didn’t have time to wait around for whoever was driving the offending truck, so she pulled out her phone and opened up a ride share app.
Luckily, there was a driver available two minutes away, and the drive to the restaurant was quick and uneventful. The driver dropped her off at the valet station of the fancy restaurant and then drove off.